Ultimatum in 2050 ad uc, p.1
Ultimatum In 2050 AD (UC), page 1
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Ultimatum in 2050 A.D. by Jack Sharkey
PART ONE
CRISIS
I
Under the stark blue-white glow that glittered from hidden niches onto the faceted undersurface of the vast vaulted crystal dome, the people milled and jockeyed for position near the dais. There was still room to move about and select a standing-site; most of the heavy thronging was still at the entrances, the wide, squat arches giving egress to the fifteen block-long arcades that radiated from the center of the temple like the spokes of a gigantic wheel. Between the pillars that framed these arches, long unbroken walls served as firm backdrops for the Vote Boxes, twenty-five to a wall, three hundred seventy-five in all, to service a building that could hold five thousand.
Lloyd Bodger took a quick look at his wristwatch while there was still sufficient elbowroom to lift his arm. Two min-utes till eight P.M. Service began promptly on the hour. He gauged his nearness to the dais with a practiced eye, then let himself be wedged into place by the increasing pressure of urgent bodies about him. It would not do to remain in the rear of the hemispherical room, where he might lose some of the Speakster's words, words that might have direct bearing upon the next Vote; nor would it do to let himself stand too' near the dais, from which central point he might find himself at the tail end of the voting line, should the Proposition Screens begin to glow during the Service. A decisive Vote could be made in ten seconds, but each Kinsman was allowed thirty. The Screen would only propose the bill for five minutes before the Count. That meant that Lloyd must be at least the tenth person in a line in order to be assured his chance to knock his Voteplate in the slot. He'd missed two of his allowable three non-Votes this quarter, already. It would not do to miss another.
The glow from the dome decreased, suddenly, as the center of the dais unfolded back into fifteen equal wedge-segments, like a blossoming flower, and the Speakster rose into view amid a solemn hush. Bright golden light made the white velvet robe shimmer like a slippery flame, and made the shadowy aspect of the cowl-hidden features all the more terrible. The golden light spilled upward from the surfaces of the fifteen triangular "petals", bathing the Speakster thoroughly in bright radiance, leaving the remainder of the Temple in even darker darkness by contrast.
The arms of the Speakster rose slowly, angling domeward over his unseen head, until the folds of the weighty sleeves slid back a trifle at the cuff, exposing the wax-white hands, fingers spread wide apart, palms toward the beginning of the dome-curve, as though warding off impending dangers. Lloyd shivered, suddenly, despite the suffocating warmth of the crowd. This would not be a regular Service. That was the Danger-stance. Unconsciously, he held his breath, listening, as the mass tension grew unbearably electric.
"There cannot be Service tonight" thundered the Speakster. "We are polluted from within. It would be sacrilege to have
Service with a traitor in our midst!" The magnificent voice paused for three heartbeats, to let the ghastly knowledge take root in the minds of the assembly. Then, over the rising gasp that arose from the multitude, "She has been traced to this holy place, in a fiendish attempt to lose herself among the masses, to hide her rottenness amid the healthy flesh of the Kinsmen! Remain in your places—!" cried the Speakster, as a short-lived Brownian Movement began in the close-packed mob. People froze in place at the peremptory shout. "The Goons have been alerted, and are even now converging through the arcades!" said the Speakster. A sigh of relief whispered like a concerted zephyr over the upturned faces. "She will be found out, have no fear. When I depart, and the Light-of-Day returns, you must exit through the arcade by which you entered. You will be checked by a squad of Goons on your way out. Remember, a good Kinsman has nothing to fear!"
The outstretched arms swung down until the pallid palms came firmly together before the Speakster's chest, the cowled head bowed low, and then the figure on the dais descended from sight, the stiff "petals" re-closing over the spot on which the Speakster had stood, and the golden light vanishing as the Light-of-Day sprang bluely into harsh life against the crystal dome. Lloyd turned obediently, as soon as movement was possible in the dispersing crowd, and started toward his point of entrance, the arcade that would lead him into his sector of the Hive.
Without warning, the Proposition Screens flickered on, and the crowd's movement jerked to a confused halt. Then, as though collectively realizing that there was time enough to be checked by the Goons after the Vote, people formed into neat lines, queuing up before the Vote Boxes that lined the walls.
As the bright glow on the screen coalesced into legible words, Lloyd took another look at his watch. Five past eight. That gave him till ten past to arrive at the Vote Box. With mounting anxiety, he counted heads in the line before him. He was twelfth. If each person took the allotted thirty seconds—he'd miss his Vote, have to be hospitalized for Readjustment. He tried to stay calm as the line advanced. He was too nervous to even consider the Proposition on the screen. The thing to do was to Vote. Pro or con did not matter. What mattered was the registry of his plate number in the Central Brain.
With two minutes to go, he found four people before him. Trie first, a gray-suited man with very little hair, knocked his plate in the slot—then stood and pondered. It was fully twenty-five seconds before he depressed one of the buttons in the Vote Box's interior, where his choice would remain secret. Another few seconds to retrieve his plate, and then a full six precious seconds while the next person, a skinny woman very near the compulsory retirement age, fumbled in a deep leather purse for her card. And she pondered…
Sweat sprang out on Lloyd's forehead. There wouldn't be • enough time. There couldn't be… unless—
"Miss!" he said, to the back of the small blonde head in front of him. The girl spun about to face him, dark-green eyes wide in fright, breath hissing between parted lips. "I didn't mean to startle you," he said, contritely. "It's just that—" It was terrible, telling such an awful confidence to a total stranger, but it was the only way to convince her quickly. "I've missed twice this quarter," he blurted. "Not my fault. I'm a good Kinsman, honestly. It was line-jams, both times. Too many people for too few Vote Boxes. You must believe me!"
"What—" she said, a little dazedly. "What can I do?"
"Let me have your place in line!" begged Lloyd. "I've timed it. Less than a minute left till Count, and two ahead of me, including yourself. Please help me!"
"I—" she said, with a funny, almost hysterical smile. "I don't know why you should be so—" Then she stepped aside, swiftly. "Go ahead. Hurry!"
Lloyd leaped into the breach without even pausing to voice his thanks. As the young man before him stepped away, Lloyd jammed his plate into the slot, and shoved his fingers inside the handspace. A fumble, and he had a button, he didn't know which one. Pro was right, Con was left, but he just prodded it inward without checking its location. Then the light died on the screen, and his plate popped out of the slot. He caught it deftly, sighed in quavery relief, and turned to thank his benefactor. He saw her trailing after the departing people toward one of the arcades, shuffling her feet, apparently in no hurry. Then an uncomfortable thought struck him, and he ran to catch up with her.
"Miss—!" he said, taking her arm. Again the brief look of fear on her features, then she smiled. It was a small, very tired smile. "You needn't thank me—" she began.
"I wasn't going to—" said Lloyd. Then, embarrassed, "I mean, of course I'd thank you, but that isn't why I came after you. I just realized— Have you missed any Votes this quarter? I'd hate to be the cause of your Readjustment…"
The girl gave that funny smile again, and simply pressed his fingers with her own, then shook her head.
"There's no danger," she said softly, "of my getting in trouble for non-voting. I was glad to help you."
Something in her words bothered Lloyd, something in their stress. He did not release her hand, but kept it snugly in his own.
"You're in trouble for something else, aren't you!" he said succinctly. "That's why you didn't mind giving me your place. What can a girl like you—?" He suddenly remembered the words of the Speakster, and dropped the girl's hand as though it had burnt him. "You— You're the—"
"Please!" begged the girl, before his voice could rise in a warning shout to the crowd. "Don't give me away! I helped you…"
"I—" Lloyd stopped, feeling sick inside. She had helped him; he couldn't show his gratitude by turning her in. But— "They'll get you anyhow," he said flatly, with a note of near-pity in his voice. "By rights, I should raise a cry right this instant, to save the Goons the trouble of checking all the good Kinsmen." A secondary thought hit him, and he took a very short step backward. "And you're diseased. The longer you remain in contact with the crowd, the more likely a spread of the contagion…"
"I'm not!" she almost shouted, then clenched her jaws, and got control of herself. Bright moisture began to trickle from the corners of her eyes, and she dabbed angrily at the warm salty drops. "I was hurt, yes!" she said, suddenly pulling back the long sleeve of her bright green dress for a brief moment. Lloyd saw the ragged, pink-edged cicatrix on the underside of her forearm, and winced. "It's healed," she said. "I didn't need the hospital, don't you see?"
Lloyd saw, and stood there, his mind fumbling dizzily for a direction to take. The last straggling ends of the crowd were moving into the arcades, now. The Goons would
She nodded, once, then turned her back on him, and stood, small and helpless, in the growing void that was the Temple proper. Lloyd turned from her and started toward his arcade. Then he stopped and looked back at her. She was healed, after all… He remembered with a sense of shame the time he'd broken a finger, and hadn't reported for hospital assignment, because a favorite cowboy was at the neighborhood theater that afternoon. He never had gone in, then, being fearful lest the examining doctors notice that he'd delayed. The finger had healed itself, a trifle crookedly, and Lloyd had never told anyone of his dereliction, not even his father. Especially not his father.
Suddenly, he turned and ran back to the girl. "Do they know you?" he said, fiercely, frightened by his own daring.
"Wh—who?" gasped the girl, startled by his reappearance. "Who know me?" Then, catching his meaning, "The Goons, you mean?" Lloyd nodded impatiently. "No, they don't. But they don't have to. I— I have no Voteplate."
Lloyd jammed his fists against his hips and gave his head a disparaging shake. "Can't you girls hang onto anything?" he muttered. "Don't tell me yours fell in the sea from a Tourgyro?"
"You say that as though you know somebody whose did" said the girl, a tiny frown knitting her smooth brow.
"My fiancee," he explained, adding, with an embarrassed grin, "I'll be twenty-five just after next Marriage Day. I found her in the phonebook listings."
"But—what'd she do?" the girl persisted. "Without a Vote-plate she could have been picked up any time, in the first Goon inspection that arose."
Lloyd shot an anxious glance at the now-empty arch of his arcade, and took a step that way. "I have to leave you now," he said, trying to smile over the pounding of his heart. "Take this," he urged, pressing something into her hand. "Your arcade is third over from mine. When you get outside, wait. I'll meet you there and get this back. Don't fail me, please."
He spun about and dashed toward his arcade, leaving her standing in the center of the floor, staring dumbfounded at the flat metal plate in her hand. "Where did you—?" she called after him. But Lloyd was already through the arch and out of sight. Trembling, the girl turned toward the indicated arch, and followed swiftly after the stragglers entering it, her perspiring fingers clamped rigidly upon the engraved face of the Voteplate.
II
Lloyd's inner agitation increased as he drew near the Goon inspecting his arcade. Through his dalliance with the fugitive girl, he had managed to merit the last place in the line. The Goon could therefore afford to take a bit longer with him than it might with those before him. One man and a solitary Goon were not going to impede the nine P.M. influx of Kinsmen through the arcade.
Lloyd didn't like Goons. He knew he was supposed to recognize in them the ultimate in police efficiency, so much surer and safer than the ancient bluecoats of the twentieth century, but they still gave him chills. A Goon, a Governmental Opposer of Neutrality, was a fearful sight. All were of a size, equal to a micrometer-breadth, a monstrous eight feet of thick metal and ponderous wheels, bathed from base to apex in the blurry gray pulsations of their protective force-fields, through which no power on Earth could penetrate. The metal arms were multi-jointed and dextrous to a fantastic degree, despite the clumsy look of the thick tripodal fingers at the ends of the arms. The "eyes" were wide-set telelenses, a pair of them, to report back all they saw to the Brain itself, deep beneath the teeming streets of the Hive. And each Goon spoke with the cold inflectionless tones of the Brain, the flatly indifferent voice that could only emanate from a mind of glowing vacuum tubes and magnetic fields. And Goons had the two most terrible weapons of the age built into them. From any or all of a Goon's six fingertips could spring the dreaded Snapper Beam, an electronic refinement of vibrations that struck the human nervous system almost identically with the chemical effect of strychnine poisoning, except that a Snapper Beam worked instantly, and always fatally. A brush of the invisible force, and a man's face creased into the frenzied grin of a madman, his legs danced wildly, uncontrollably, and the muscles of his back contracted tightly, until his spine cracked in two. And the
Goons had Feargas, one whiff of which could reduce a howling mob into individual huddles of mewling terror, leave weaker persons dead of their own fright, and powerful men shaking and sobbing like children in the thrall of midnight chimeras.
Lloyd had never seen either employed, save in the theaters. Dispersal of insurrection by Goons was a popular theme in films. Feargas was seldom used, of course. A mob could be efficiently halted by a sweeping Snapper Beam, to fall like broken puppets. Feargas was employed only if information were necessary; it allowed the mob members to survive, weak with fright, until the cause of the insurrection, or the identities of other members, was ascertained. Then the Snapper Beam was used to finish the job. Goons never lost a film battle. Or a real one.
"Name," said the Goon, as the woman in front of Lloyd moved quickly out of the arcade. Goons could not inflect. You had to sense their questions.
"Lloyd Bodger, Junior," said Lloyd, extending his Vote-plate for perusal. The three fingers took the plate from his fingers, and slid it into a slot in the chest. A sharp click, and the plate was returned to him, his number now on file in the vast memory banks of the Brain.
"Your sector," said the Goon. With his Voteplate data on file, he would be hard put to tell a lie. Any discrepancy in his statements would go hard on him. He hoped, shakily, that the unknown girl had a sharp memory. She'd only have a few moments to memorize the information on the plate. Lloyd was already regretting giving it to her, regretting it deeply. There would be trouble for him if she slipped up. One error, and the Goon in her arcade would detain her for investigation. She would be made to tell the truth, tell where she got the Voteplate. Lloyd's only hope, should she fail, was that she didn't know who he was, nor that the Voteplate she carried rightfully belonged to Grace Horton, his fiancee… Or did she? Lloyd remembered with a shock that he'd told her of Grace's dropping her plate from the Tourgyro. Would she guess that the plate was that of his fiancee? One shrewd deduction, and they would find him through the files. All engaged couples had to register.
These thoughts flickered through Lloyd's mind in the split second between the Goon's second query and his outwardly calm response, "Hundred-Level, Angle One, Unit B."
Lloyd's sector was only one short of being the most important in the Hive. The President lived in Unit A, in the same Angle. Lloyd Bodger, Senior, was Secondary Speakster of the entire Hive. But Goons were no respecters of persons. And less so were they respecters of mere offspring of persons.
"Assignment," droned the Goon.
"Null," said Lloyd, indicating the question was inapplicable.
"Goal," the Goon sub-questioned.
"Secondary Speakster of the Hive by inheritance," said Lloyd, hoping the keen lenses of the Goon would interpret his glistening forehead and dripping palms as mere evidence of normal tension when under official inspection, not the heart-stopping fear that at any moment a message would reach this Goon, relayed through the Brain, that Lloyd Bodger, Junior, was to be detained for investigation regarding the illegal possession of a Voteplate by a known fugitive.
The Goon's arms suddenly dropped to its thick sides, it swiveled completely about-face, and rolled swiftly off toward the far end of the arcade. The interview was over, and it had gone, abruptly as that. No "Thanks for your time and trouble," or "You pass inspection," or "That will be all." Goons were built for basic efficiency, not for the subtler nuances of civilized conversation.
